SUPERMARKET workers on Teesside are facing unemployment after a chain of stores went into administration.

Workers at FreshXpress, were told last week that the company, which took over 56 stores from Kwik Save including four Teesside branches last July, had gone into administration.

It is unknown how many jobs will be lost on Teesside but it is thought that 13 staff members based at the Linthorpe Road shop in Middlesbrough have been made unemployed.

Now many fear they will lose out on redundancy money too.

Part-time cashier Denise Nixon, 46, has worked at the store for three years and had been expecting redundancy money of £834, but she says she’s been kept in the dark.

“I have been off sickl,” said the mother-of-one, from Middlesbrough.

“But there was a meeting in February and then in March it closed.

“We were supposed to be getting redundancy pay on March 26 but I had a bad feeling about it so I rang up.

“I was told that we would not be getting paid yet and it could take from six to eight weeks.”

Denise is relying on income support.

She added: “I just want to know what’s going on and how long we are going to have to wait now for a payment.”

Joanne McGuinness national officer for the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw), is disappointed at the move.

She said: “The staff who have been made redundant at FreshXpress face exactly the same position as their Kwik Save counterparts did last year.

“This means they will only be paid the statutory minimum in terms of redundancy pay because the company has gone into administration.

“Any entitlement to enhanced contractual payments which they may have transferred to the new company from Kwik Save have therefore been lost. They are also owed unpaid wages and ex-gratia pay.

“This is a totally unacceptable state of affairs and that’s why we went to Downing Street in December to press for changes in the employment protection laws to guard against a repeat of this type of situation.

“We will do all we can to help our members claim their statutory entitlement from the Government’s Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) department.”

Limited information has been offered by representatives of FreshXpress, though a spokesperson confirmed that the company will retain nine trading sites.

Despite numerous inquiries by the Evening Gazette, the company would not confirm how many jobs would be saved on Teesside or when workers would get their redundancy money.